I am happy Belt has made the commitment of Winter Ball--especially considering The Club's--and more specifically botch's lack of commitment to him. He needs to see Major League Level pitching on a consistent basis to ensure his development of what should be a Solid Major League Offensive player. He already has demonstatrated very good strike zone judgement and plate discipline--not so easily found n a player of his experience--as of about a week ago, Belt was third among NL Rookies in walk percentage--something that seems to have gone OVER the heads of the Offensive Simpletons in the Giant Dugout and possibly even the Executive Offices. This was a wonderful article, and I appreciate the opportunity to read and comment--Thank You~~~~Paul

I personally think the thrust of this article is completely--or at the very least partially--wrong--as the author suggests, I have been reading consistently that Brandon Belt has trouble hitting breaking pitches. Based on the excellent data the author provided, Belt is missing at aprox 10% greater rate than the average MLBer based on a statitically insignificant sample of 65 pitches (I wonder if this rate is effected either by league or park factors). Based on "the Giants nearly criminal mismanagement of the young prospect" ( I have used nearly these exact words--so LOVE this), his inexperience and status as a power hitter, I see nothing wrong statistically with Brandon Belt's ability to hit a curve ball.

Belt needs to back off the plate. The pitchers clearly are jamming him inside. If Belt can go to left field when pitches are over the outside corner, he'll do fine. But he is too tight to the plate now and is popping up too many inside pitches or just plain missing them. Occasionally he'll hit one, but not enough to keep him above .230 to .240. At his height, he is naturally vulnerable to getting jammed. He will make the adjustment and become an all-star.

Belt is not a major leagure hitter yet so the G's should let him play a full season at Fresno. Do not bring him up.

Yeah, I have to wonder about the up-and-down with Belt. Age/experience aside, I sometimes think prospects get turned into AAAA players - i.e. Belt would indeed be more aggressive on fastballs in Fresno (as suggested), have huge success, but it won't help the actual breaking ball problem at all. For his development, he really should have stayed in SF or Fresno all year, playing every day, as opposed to trying to "tweak" him. He seems like a smart guy and has a lot of natural ability. Hindsight, of course, but in the end he probably would have hit better than some combination of ABs from Huff/Ross/Torres. And at this point, I too really see no difference between, say, Crawford and Cabrera at short. As above, there really wasn't much difference in the first place anyway. Bad to see the team (Bochy, Sabean) seemingly potentially getting into his head when the alternatives are journeymen where the upside/downside is pretty well known.

I also think this sheds some light on the whispers you hear that organization wants Belt to be more aggressive (ie swing when he gets a fastball so he doesn't put himself into a position where a breaking ball can put him away), but again, that's a short-term strategy. Long term it's obviously better to have a batter who makes pitchers throw pitches, who's not afraid to hit deep in the count, who draws walks and hits dingerz. But again you just have to be willing to live through some of these young player adjustments in order to get to that long-term value. I still say the first bad step they took was bringing Brandon north on Opening Day. In only his second pro season, a full year in Fresno might have helped with this issue, and certainly what happened instead hasn't helped at all.

Thanks Chris, that's really interesting. I think you're right that this is just Belt's natural major league learning curve and he mostly needs to see good breaking balls in order to learn how to adjust to them. On the one hand, I suppose you can understand why a team that wants to compete for a championship would be loathe to live through the rookie adjustment period, it certainly looks to be bad long-term strategy.

I believe that Bochy has been quite explicit about this, citing the example of Justin Christian in the winter leagues.,

I hope more playing time this month and Winter Ball does the trick, because he is one of the keys to the Giants' offensive future.

I meant to add this to the main post, but I think this is probably one of the reasons why the Giants want to send Belt to the Dominican Winter League. The winter leagues have a reputation of being leagues where pitchers throw a ton of breaking balls and it could do Belt some good to get more PT in that environment.